stated, that Dr. Whitby, the author of the Paraphrase on the New Testament, towards the close of his life, imbibed Socinian sentiments? Throughout his work, he seems to have had his eye steadily fixed upon that theory, and carefully notices every text which can bear upon the controversy. I cannot believe that there is any evidence to prove that he became a Socinian: though, even if the fact were so, it would not authenticate that unscriptural system; but it might well lead us to exclaim with renewed humiliation, "Lord, what is man?" Mr. Robinson formerly published a most satisfactory treatise against those very sentiments which he afterwards adopted. SP-N. but discussion, give us but truth, give us but Christianity, and slavery cannot long survive. We do not charge the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel-we have never, even by implication, charged them, far from it-with cruelty to their slaves: they mean well and virtuously; they wish to better their condition, and to save their souls, though they refuse to liberate their bodies: but we do charge them with not having known, as a body, what was going on upon their own estates; we do charge them with the crime of being voluntary slave-holders, who have not expressed even a wish to free their captives; who have held in bondage immortal beings for several generations, from father to son, with every possible facility for instructing and liberating them; but who yet, upon the confession of their own MR. RILAND ON THE CODRINGTON agents, have left them in a state SLAVES. THE following communication has been sent to us by a highly respected and excellent clergyman, the Rev. J. Riland, who has had the Christian candour and manliness for considering how greatly the friends of the unhappy slaves in our colonies are maligned, it requires some courage to affix his name to his statements, as he did also to those in the January Number of our last volume. We are already so far rewarded for our exertions in this cause of piety and charity, that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and other religious societies connected with the West Indies, have had their attention directed to examine into the question, and to demand of their colonial correspondents explicit accounts of the actual state of their affairs. The interest already excited, and the facts elucidated, more than compensate us for any portion of misrepresentation or reproach which we may have been thought worthy of enduring in this truly honourable cause. This will pass away, but the benefit will remain. Give us in which, worse than heathens, and like brute beasts, they have not learned even the nature of the institution of marriage, but have been living in the most abandoned sensualities. We speak not of captured Africans, but of men and women born on the Society's own plantations, and educated under their own eye; that is, under the eye of their confidential agents, for whose statements they have made themselves responsible; —as if there was any property in the West Indies, the colonial managers of which would not maintain that the slaves are well fed, well clothed, moderately worked, and assiduously instructed. We again say that we impute no charge of cruelty, as has been not very candidly alleged against us; but we impute past neglects not yet compensated for; we impute the ferocious driving whip, not even yet banished as the stimulus to labour; we impute the crime of holding the present race in slavery, and of making no provision even for the emancipation of the next; we impute it as a heinous sin in a charitable, a religious, a Churchof-England, a Christian, a missionary society, that, far from doing all that they ought to have done, they have not even performed all that the British legislature thought necessary to be enforced upon the most ignorant and hard hearted manufacturer of rum and treacle: we charge them with supporting we heed not bequests, if bequests involve immorality-a college for the education of White men, by the toil and blood of hundreds of miserable victims brought to the West Indies by the most atrocious pillage and piracy, and retained there they or their posterityby force, without being so much as paid wages for their labour: or, to pass over all these charges, and by no means to make the present members of the Society responsible for past acts or neglects in which they had no concern, we yet charge them with this, that years have elapsed since they were apprised of the facts of the case; and that, not withstanding, the helpless child born but yesterday on the Society's estates is as much a slave, and as likely, for any thing the Society has done, to continue a slave till the hour of its death, as were its forefathers before the guilt and abominations of the system had been pointed out to the horror of a Christian nation. We say nothing of the present race of slaves; for the Society frankly tell us they have not educated them so as to be fit to be made freemen; let that pass-but with regard to the future race, the infant yet unborn, we have no scruple in saying that the British public never will be satisfied, their own subscribers never will be satisfied, religion and justice never will be satisfied, till they have passed a vote that all children born for the time to come upon their estates, shall enjoy the liberty which their Creator gave them, and be educated as free virtuous and Christian labourers, fairly paid wages for reaping down their fields, a blessing to themselves, their families, and their employers; and above all, "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." The sentiment which becomes Britons and Christians, as respects their own liberties, and those of others, is admirably expressed in Pollok's splendid poem (See Review, in our Appendix), Who blush alike to be, or have a slave. The following is Mr. Riland's communication. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. Dispatches from the Rev. John Packer, chaplain to the Negroes on the Codrington plantations in Barbadoes, and from Mr. Foster Clarke, agricultural attorney for the same property, having appeared in the Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, lately published, as an official account of the present condition of the slaves on the Society's estates; I beg leave, in my own defence, and-if you will accept my aid-in vindication of the Christian Observer, to gather a few illustrations, from the papers now submitted to public examination, of the reasonableness of our former allegations and complaints. It is but equitable, however, to acknowledge, at the outset, that the elements of a synopsis of the educational plan, pursued on the plantations, are given in Mr. Packer's letter. Eighty-three children, divided into five classes, it is stated, are receiving instruction. It is also stated, that fourteen baptisms, and ten burials, have taken place within the year. The report of Mr. Clarke is, on the other hand, extremely unsatisfactory. I urge only the following proofs among others :-. 1. He says, "By the late slave consolidation act," they (the slaves) "have, I think, the same advantage of investing money as White and Free persons, by putting it out at interest on security." Now, our inquiry, Mr. Editor, was, "Have they, the Society, established a savings bank, and taken pains to teach the slaves its use?" To this question Mr. Clarke replies, "I think." It is supposed that an agent residing on the spot, and, as an attorney, conversant with colonial law, might have known the provisions of the act; and certainly, that he might readily have consulted it, for the express purpose of satisfying the society at home without "I think." 2. Mr. Clarke asserts, that the slaves" are enabled through their owners, or by the protector of slaves, to recover at law from their owners or others." A statement of this kind, to say the least of it, is trifling with the feelings and common sense of any one concerned in the inquiry. Suppose, even in our own free country, that the confidential attorney of some powerful nobleman had successfully employed the authority, and the treasury, of his principal, to defraud a day-labourer of his savings; what would the public think of the adviser, who should console the poor helpless man by telling him, that he might recover his pittance through his lordship's legal agent! The difficulties of such things, even in a land of equal rights, with regard to person and property, are become proverbial. "The law is open-so is the London tavern." But it seems, that a rifled and lacerated Negro has a farther resource in the protector of slaves. On this point, Mr. Huskisson says, in his memorable dis patch of Oct. 18, 1827, "On the subject of protection of slaves, it is impossible to regard the establishment, formed by the present law, as an effectual substitute for the office of protector and guardian of slaves, as suggested by Lord Ba thurst. There is a very serious objection to entrusting the selection of the acting protector to any other authority than that of his Majesty. It is also highly inconvenient that the governor should be associated with other persons, on a footing of precise equality in discharging any duty connected with the executive government......His powers are limited in such a manner as to deprive the office of the greater part CHRIST OBSERV. No. 325. of its value and efficiency. He is permitted himself to be the owner of slaves; an indulgence which, for very obvious reasons, ought not to be granted. It would be in vain to suppose that a law, thus imperfectly constituted, would ensure an effec tual protection to the slaves, or the punctual execution of the laws in their favour." 3. In the course of 1827, application was made, says Mr. Clarke, by the driver on the estate, to purchase his two daughters; which was also consented to by the Society, and is about to be carried into effect immediately." If the driver of 1827 be the same man who carried the whip, or other symbol of office, in 1825, he is, by Mr. Coleridge's account, the parent of twelve children. Are the remaining ten to be retained in bondage; and what is the regulation. price of redemption? Is it for a Missionary Society to accept the price of blood to promote the education of White men, or any other purpose, however excellent? And by what regulation does it come to pass, that a father, who, in 1827, applied for the manumission of his two daughters, is unable to complete the contract before the 7th of May 1828, the date of Mr. Clarke's letter? Is it necessary, on these occasions, to send for the concurrence of the Society in London? 4. "No registry of punishments has ever been kept on the estate," says Mr. Clarke. I make no comment on this fact. There may have been no cruelty or severity; but as the lashes are unrecorded, this at least is a mere matter of inference, from the good character of the higher agents down to the lowest driver on the estates. 5. In the next place, on the vexata quæstio of the whip, our accuser, S. H. P., in the Christian Remembrancer for January 1828, writes thus: "What are the means taken to enforce labour I know not: that it is not the whip, is certain for corporal punishment is abolished F. on the estate." Again; "There is no corporal punishment allowed on the estate: ergo, the whip is abolished." Again; " Mr. Riland... might have learned, from Mr. Pinder's evidence, that corporal punishment is not, nor has been for some years, practised upon the estate...but with the cessation of the whip, &c." Again; "I do not for my own part believe, that, except to drive cattle, a whip is ever employed upon the estate, either as excitement or punishment; for it is, as above shewn, expressly contrary to the rules laid down to employ any corporal punishment." To this four-times repeated assertion, Mr. Clarke, and not you, Mr. Christian Observer, nor your correspondent, shall reply: "I cannot say its use has been entirely abolished...the driver was compelled to take it up again for a short time... I trust the time is not very distant, when we shall find that the use of the whip in the field may be dispensed with altogether;" just as says the most hard-hearted planter. 1 After this short examination of the few points offered to public consideration, it may be left to the reader to determine the reasonableness of our former allegations; and especially to decide, whether the estate of a Christian corporation is, or is not, worked under the whip. In the mean time, it is but just to myself, and to various friends of missionary institutions, who keep aloof from the Propagation Society, so long as they judge it to be polluted by the guilt of the colonial system, to allege, that the Barbadian chaplain and attorney maintain a dead silence on the subject of marriage, concubinage, and polygamy; on the education of the adult slaves; and finally, on the great question in which all other inquiries terminate, whether the Society keep stedfastly in view the ultimate emancipation of their bondsmen; and, for this purpose, are making, and are also contem plating, arrangements by which such a result may be effected. In the journal of the Rev. F. Christian, inserted in the Society's Report, the author describes the sacrifice of a buffalo in the following terms: "The chief, with one stroke of his sword, cut the ham-strings of the poor animal, which brought it to the ground. The cord that bound it to the stake was now loosed; and it was dragged to the shrine, when the people with their swords began cutting at the neck. I never saw a sight so barbarous; for a long time, as they continued cutting at it, by its struggles, it forced itself two or three times round the shrine; during which, I was obliged to hold my hand on my eyes. At last, from loss of blood, it was exhausted, and fell down about two yards from my feet; and suffered its butchers to hack away without a struggle. I just raised my eyes at this time, and looked at the poor thing; they had cut about half way through the neck, and the blood seemed like a well in the horrid looking gash." The reader's blood is curdled by such a story; and yet, in the island of Mauritius, and under the Christian government of this country, the slave law, remaining in force at this hour*, contains the following clause: "A fugitive slave, absent a month after being denounced, shall have his ears cut off, and be branded with a fleur-de-lis; if absent a second time, for the same space, his ham-strings shall be cut, and he shall again be branded; if a third time, he shall suffer death." Suffer me only to ask the question, whether the very toleration of a law, in a British colony, which formally authorises, and indeed requires, a proprietor of slaves to punish a fugitive by an act of cruelty, such as awakens our indignation when exercised upon a buffalo, ought not to be made matter of remonstrance with government, by societies for the propa Parliamentary Papers. No. 526. July 10, 1828. gation of the Gospel. The time was, when our countrymen used to remember, and quote in their tabletalk, the language of the first of their Christian poets: Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And, worse than all, and more to be deplored, As human nature's broadest, foulest, blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes; that mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast! And it is thus that some among us can weep, and become faint and sick, when they read a missionary's account of the barbarities practised upon a brute; yet, all the while, and I speak advisedly, actually refuse to be informed as to the oppression and deeds of blood exercised towards our fellow-subjects, and, in some instances, to our fellow Christians, in the highest and purest sense, in our slave colonies. But I master, we find the most merciful and benevolent enactments. In the first place, it appears, that every bond-servant on the fiftieth year, the year of the great jubilee, was to be made free. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to the inhabitants thereof.' Levit. xxv. 10 *. "With respect to a Hebrew servant, no man, either from poverty or any other cause, could be forced to sell his service for more than six years; in the seventh he was to go free. And here again we cannot but observe the tenderness of the Mosaic law. When his liberty was granted to him, he was not to be turned adrift upon the world, destitute and poor; his master was to furnish him liberally with all necessary stores, and, as it were, to set him up in life again. And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years, then in the seventh thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press; of that whereof the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondsman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God so- redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.' Deut. xv. 12-15. have done. It is well if this short address create no impatience or disgust among the parties most nearly implicated: it is better if it incite inquiry, repentance, and amendment. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, Yoxall, near Lichfield. THE CHRISTIAN-KNOWLEDGE Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. AMONG the many excellent publications on the list of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, I have just been perusing, with great pleasure, one entitled "The Mercies of the Mosaic Law." The following observations upon slavery are so just and seasonable that I should be happy to see them transferred to your pages. "With respect to those who were, either by purchase or by captivity, the property of a Jewish "In almost every other country, with whose laws we are acquainted, the life of a slave was entirely in the hands of his master; and in this power of life and death, the masters were by the very law-givers themselves indulged. The condition therefore of slaves, even among the most polished nations of the heathen world, was truly desperate. We have a few cases indeed in later *The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have had their slaves more than two fifty years; but, alas! no year of jubilee have they yet seen. |